Oh, whoops. Is it already six hours since I downloaded my preorder copy of Cold Days the instant it was available? I didn't notice because I'm 77% through it.

I guess I should probably go to sleep. Or not. Damn. This is Harry Potter all over again, you know, except with instantaneous wireless delivery. The upside, of course, is that I don't have to go to the bookstore and buy a second copy to avoid waiting for the first one to come in the mail.

Well, anyway, can't write, busy reading.

Boy, I've been working on these sentence trees for my grammar class, and it's taking longer than it really has any right to. All the sentences are full of extra adjectives and adverbs that don't really make them difficult, but sure as hell make them take longer to draw.

Well, I suppose I'll be all right, since I'm working with a solid buffer before the deadline. The objective in having so many modifiers is presumably to drill them until they become routine, as is standard practice with homework in many such disciplines. I just wish they could take up less space on the page. At this rate, I need a full page for each sentence, and I'm losing paper faster than Mitt Romney is losing Facebook "Likes".

I also had to write up an essay about Robinson Crusoe for English 10C and do a poetry workshop writeup for 5P, so I've been busy this weekend.

Unrelated: I'm finally getting around to reading the Thursday Next books. I finished the second one this morning. So far so good; I'm enjoying them. Pretty nifty premise. But of course, I'm also excited about the impending release of a new installment in The Dresden Files--so much so that I went ahead and preordered it from Amazon to get it delivered instantly to my Kindle as soon as it's available. The sample chapters have been trickling in on Jim Butcher's website, and it's all very thrilling.

The Dresden Files, in Magic cards

Harry Dresden, Wizard
1WR
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
R, Sacrifice a land: ~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
W: Prevent the next 1 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn.
2/3

Bob the Skull
3UU
Legendary Creature - Spirit
T: Draw two cards.
B, Pay 5 life: ~ gets +6/+6, becomes black, and gains intimidate until end of turn.
0/2

Michael Carpenter, Fist of God
WWW
Legendary Creature - Human Knight
Vigilance
Whenever ~ blocks, he gets +7/+7 until end of turn.
3/3

Thomas Raith
1WB
Legendary Creature - Vampire
Lifelink
Put a -1/-1 counter on another creature you control: Regenerate ~.
3/3

The Nightmare
3BB
Legendary Creature - Nightmare Spirit
Intimidate
Whenever ~ attacks, you may destroy target tapped creature.
5/5

Corpsetaker
4BB
Legendary Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
You control enchanted creature.
Enchanted creature has "1B, T: Attach ~ to target creature."

Grevane, Heir of Kemmler
3BB
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
At the beginning of your end step, put a +1/+1 counter on each zombie creature you control.
B, T: Put a 2/2 black Zombie token onto the battlefield.
3/2


The Archive
3UU
Legendary Creature - Human Avatar
Hexproof
You may look at your library. (You may do this at any time.)
1/5

The Blackstaff
4
Legendary Artifact - Equipment
Equip 4
Equipped creature has "T: Destroy target creature."

Blackened Denarius
3
Artifact - Equipment
Equip 4
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has intimidate.
4BB, Sacrifice a creature: Attach ~ to target creature. You control that creature for as long as ~ is attached to it.

Fool Moon
1G
Instant
Tap all Werewolves. Tap all Wolf Demons. Tap all Wolf Humans. Tap all Human Wolf Shapeshifters.

Grave Peril
2RR
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Destroy all vampires. Exile target spirit.

Blood Rites
3RR
Enchantment
1R, Sacrifice a creature: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.

Dead Beat
2B
Sorcery
Put target Dinosaur card from your graveyard onto the battlefield. It's a zombie in addition to its other types.

Proven Guilty
1B
Enchantment
All creatures have fear.

Small Favor
0
Artifact
T, Sacrifice ~: Target player gets you target doughnut.

Changes
1BW
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast ~, sacrifice a Vampire.
Exile all vampires. Search each opponent's hand, graveyard, and library for any number of Vampire cards and exile them.

Ghost Story
3W
Sorcery
Put target Wizard card from your graveyard onto the battlefield. It's a Spirit in addition to its other types.

So today was pretty uneventful.

Now that I've finished The Dresden Files I decided to re-read it because seriously. I chomped through Ghost Story again between last night and today, and now I'm going back to Storm Front. I haven't decided which book is my favorite. I guess you could say I never had a favorite--never really felt like I needed one. Aye?

Apparently I'm supposed to write some essays and stuff for next week. So that's also a thing. I've set aside some time tomorrow to do some work on that. Tumbling some ideas around in my head for my myth/legend/folktale rewrite. The story of John Henry from the machine's point of view? The story of Persephone via Persephone's diary? Hades's diary? Or maybe through the letters that Hermes might have delivered back and forth between the characters during the crisis? Who knows.

Didn't do anything terribly interesting in class. Statistics discussion was boring. English, we talked about some erotic poem about a flea. Myths & Legends was some lecture or other. All pretty mundane. I had noodle soup for lunch and ramen for dinner.

Weather's getting hot. Very sunny. Much better for biking than the cold and wind, though, of course.

Watched the newest episode of The Legend of Korra on the Nickelodeon website. Bolin is funny in a Woobie sort of way, but Tenzin didn't show up at all. At least the airbender tots got a scene.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I did today.

Today was fairly uneventful.

We formed up into groups of three in my writing class. Next week we're going to do some draft-looking-at or something. Gotta have something to work with by Saturday night. Should be doable.

Talked about Proto Indo-European stuff in Myths & Legends. Shared cultural roots leading to similarities in mythology and folklore, blah blah blah. And we watched a video of a Welsh folktale called "King March" about a king who's embarrassed to take his crown off because he has horse ears and it looks very silly. Only his barber knows the secret, but the barber is bad at keeping secrets, so he whispers the secret to the ground. Except then reeds grow from the spot, and the local piper uses the reeds to make a new pipe, and when he plays the pipe it whispers the secret to everyone. So the king is embarrassed but it turns out everyone still respects him and nobody laughs at him, and it's a happy ending.

We're still on Henry V in Lit class. Not my favorite Shakespeare play, I gotta admit.

For Plant Science we had a lecture on soil. Stuff about soil composition and saturation and...stuff.

Played some Beat Hazard to pass the time. Finished a few random tracks. Some 38 Special, some Beatles, a little Taylor Swift, a couple of the built-in ones. *shrug* Got 37/47 achievements in that game now, which isn't too bad if I may say so myself.

Watched this week's episode of Game of Thrones. I am pretty sure it deviated from the book, but the spirit is the same. It's a good show. I like it.

Went to Wal-Mart for groceries. Restocked on bread, milk, dried fruit (it's not as juicy as fresh fruit but there's less pressure to eat it immediately), and all that grocery stuff. Had a bowl of soup for dinner.

Currently reading Side Jobs, which is the Dresden Files short story anthology. I like it. Also got around to catching up on The Legend of Korra which I also like. Good stuff.

And that's what I did today.

I finished The Dresden Files so now I thought I'd watch the TV adaptation, since it's available for streaming on Netflix and all.

I dunno. It's...I guess it's okay. It's not at all faithful to the books, though. I mean...okay, in fairness, the characters seem close enough, but to be perfectly frank I feel more like I'm watching reruns of Angel.

...On the other hand, I liked Angel. So that's okay then. Still, it's a little disappointing not to see the things I liked from the books show up in the adaptation. I mean that's supposed to be the point of adaptations right?

Oh well. Only 12 episodes. Whatev. *shrug*

How about another Who Would Win? Let's go with Harry Potter vs. Harry Dresden.

I think Dresden has the upper hand in a fight. He's older, smarter, more experienced, and more powerful. He should be able to kick Potter's tuckus halfway to next Tuesday. On the other hand, Potter is just a kid--Dresden probably holds back. But on the other other hand, Potter would be holding back too--he wouldn't be willing to fight dirty. Dresden is more pragmatic. He'd be throwing spells, but he'd be throwing punches too. And even if Dresden hesitates, Potter isn't skilled enough to capitalize on a brief opening like that.

Yeah, I guess this one's too easy...they're just in different weight classes. Dresden vs. Dumbledore, that's a better matchup, I guess. On the one hand, Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard in Harry Potter canon. On the other hand, wizards have a higher power level in The Dresden Files canon, and Dresden is definitely above average. Eh, Dumbledore is pretty badass when he cuts loose, though. I'd put the odds somewhere around 2:1 in Dumbledore's favor. Dresden is likely outclassed, but he's good enough to put up a decent fight and capitalize on any slip-ups. But I'll freely admit that I might be misjudging Dumbledore's power level--he doesn't show off much in canon, so it's hard to say. I do think the odds are definitely in Dresden's favor against any of the other Harry Potter wizards.

Well, there's another Who Would Win. Always a good brain-stretching exercise.

Oh man, these books are awesome

So I've been reading The Dresden Files and it's...well, it's great, is what it is. I love it.

If you haven't heard of it, The Dresden Files is a series of mystery thriller novels by Jim Butcher. Also, it's awesome. I'm just finishing up the third book and I have to force myself to put it down.

It's a lot like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if Buffy were a private detective instead of a superhero. Or Angel, if Angel were a wizard instead of a vampire. In any case, it's got that urban fantasy/horror vibe, and it's fused with that good old "Tracer Bullet" detective noir, and the result is...well, I like it a lot. Anyone who likes Buffy will probably like The Dresden Files.

This, by the way, is yet another case of TV Tropes enhancing one's life. I kept seeing this series pop up on trope pages in my wiki browsing/editing and it seemed like an interesting read, so I picked up the first book to see what it was like. And now I am devouring them.

Most of the chapters end on a suspenseful note because, well, it's a mystery thriller novel, and that's what thriller novels do. I figure it's not really fair if I get to a cliffhanger and just bowl right through to the next chapter, so I'm trying to let it stew in between chapters. Right now I'm doing that by taking a break to write this thing I'm writing right now. My main strategy, though, is to switch between two books. I'm reading the Dexter series simultaneously. I finished Darkly Dreaming Dexter a little while ago and now I'm a quarter of the way through the second book, Dearly Devoted Dexter. It's okay, but it's also actual disturbing. I knew going in that I was going to be reading about brutal murders from the perspective of a sociopathic serial killer killer, but wow, it turns out there's some pretty sickening things in there. The sort of things that make you close the book for a second to take a couple deep breaths. But it is a page-turner, and I'm still reading it, after all. Not as awesome as Dresden, but, eh.

This, by the way, is one of the perks of reading on a Kindle. I can switch between them on the fly...wait, I feel like I already did this bit. Yeah, I did, didn't I. Exact same shpiel, about a month ago. Hmm.

Now I'm reading a bunch of books at the same time. I'm still reading A Dance With Dragons, and I'm at the Windblown chapter. I just finished The Faeman Quest this morning, and I started re-reading the first book too cuz why not. I'm re-reading So You Want to Be a Wizard cuz I'm about to start the newest book in the series. And I've also started on The Dresden Files because, well, I don't know much about it, but it seems like the sort of thing I would enjoy, and I've read the first chapter of the first book so far and it's promising. Oh, and I'm re-reading The Eyes of Kid Midas because I never got around to doing the thing where you read it again but keep an eye out for tropes to add to the trope page, so I'm doing that now. And I'm listening to audiobooks of the Peter and the Starcatchers series. (Jim Dale does the readings. He's the same guy who did the Harry Potter audiobooks. He's pretty good; I like him.) Also, I've got the books from two of the freshman seminars I'm thinking about taking next quarter if they're open, and I've been looking at them in advance because hey, why not? And of course there are the readings I have to do for my classes. We had a Ray Bradbury short story "Mars Is Heaven" assigned in my Lit class, and some bits about rap and hip-hop for Sociology.

The great thing is that I can do this. I mean imagine carrying eight or nine different novels around with you everywhere you go. What a drag. But since I have my Kindle, I'm set. I can swap between them whenever I like. Just this morning when I finished The Faeman Quest, I got to immediately swap over to a different book. That's a nice feature.

Man, I keep doing this thing where I write the titles as a WikiWord and have to go back and add spaces. This is what happens when you spend too much time editing TV Tropes. It's dangerous.

Anyway, I have this homework assignment where I have to do a reading response about this reading that I did for Sociology about how black fans and white fans interpret rap and hip-hop music in different ways, so I'mma start working on that.